The John Lewis & Partners Christmas advert is a television advertising campaign released by British department store chain John Lewis & Partners in the build-up to Christmas.[1] John Lewis & Partners launched their first Christmas advert in 2007. It has since become something of an annual tradition in British popular culture,[2] and one of the signals that the countdown to Christmas has begun in the UK.[3][4][5] The adverts tend to attract widespread media coverage and acclaim upon their release.[6]

Christmas 2007 saw the first John Lewis television advertisement in three years, with a six million pound campaign, their biggest seasonal ad spend up to that point. The commercial did not feature the hallmarks of later campaigns such as an emotional denouement or slowed-down cover version, instead using Prokofiev'smorning serenade from Romeo and Juliet. It features presents and products being carefully assembled positioned to eventually create a shadow image of a woman and a dog in the snow, in the style of artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster.

For a second year, Lowe and Partners were the agency behind the John Lewis Christmas ad, a montage of people of all ages and their ideal gifts with the tagline "If you know the person, you’ll find the present". Directed by Malcolm Venville ,[13] this was the first to feature the now-traditional cover version, with "From Me to You" by The Beatles recorded by unnamed employees of John Lewis. The full track was made available to download for free on the John Lewis website with an encouragement to donate to Wallace & Gromit's Children's Foundation.

The 2009 advertisement was the first for John Lewis by agency Adam & Eve (now part of DDB Worldwide), who went on to create the subsequent Christmas campaigns. Featuring a cover of the Guns N' Roses song "Sweet Child o' Mine" by Taken by Trees, the commercial features young children opening gifts usually given to adults such as a coffee machine and a laptop. With the tagline "Remember how Christmas used to feel", the final scene shows a girl unwrapping a camera and becoming a woman.

Ellie Goulding's cover of the Elton John song "Your Song" was the soundtrack to a collection of images showing people preparing gifts for their loved ones. Most notably, two parents attempt to secretly carry a rocking horse up some stairs whilst their children watch television. The advert concludes with a boy taking a stocking of presents outside to his pet dog in the snow, and hanging it on the kennel. This caused some controversy with animal rights protesters who complained that the animal was left outside in the cold whilst the boy waved goodbye and retreated to the house.[citation needed]

Featuring The Smiths song "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" sung by Slow Moving Millie, the 2011 advert, the first of many directed by Dougal Wilson, featured a little boy impatiently counting down the days to Christmas. On Christmas Eve, he wolfs down his dinner and goes to bed early in preparation for the next day. When he awakes on Christmas morning, the little boy jumps out of bed, runs straight past a large pile of presents at the bottom of his bed and heads for the wardrobe. He then wanders into his parents bedroom, waking them to give them the gift he wrapped himself and had been waiting to give them.

Using 20-year-old Gabrielle Aplin's version of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood classic "The Power of Love", the 2012 advert showed a snowman who traversed fields, a river, a mountain to obtain a perfect Christmas gift for Mrs. Snowman. The advert was very quickly followed up by a children's picture book which was hastily written and published immediately after the advert's first screening. The song was the first song from the John Lewis Christmas adverts to be a UK Singles Chart number one. Also this year, Morrisons and Asda released controversial adverts featuring mothers.

Set to a cover of Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" by British singer Lily Allen, the 2013 campaign featured an array of woodland animals in a classical Disney style and setting. The full advert lasted 2 minutes, and was made with 2D Animation. It told the story of a bear hibernating before Christmas, before being persuaded to wake up by the titular hare to see Christmas in all its splendour. The accompanying music quickly rose to the top of the UK Singles Chart, doing so twice more in later weeks.[14] A portion of the song's sales earnings were donated to proceeds Save the Children's Philippine Typhoon Appeal campaign.[15]

In their press release ahead of the 2014 campaign launch, John Lewis stated that the strapline for the advert was "Give someone the Christmas they've been wishing for". They added that "the heartwarming advert tells the tale of an unlikely friendship between a little boy Sam and his penguin friend Monty."[1] British singer-songwriter Tom Odell recorded a cover for the advert of the 1977 John Lennon song "Real Love", which was the last official song recorded by the Beatles after being re-released in 1996.[17]

Featuring a cover of Oasis' 1994 B-side "Half the World Away", sung by Norwegian singer Aurora,[19] the 2015 campaign tells the story of a young girl trying to contact an old man spotted living alone on the Moon. Her attempts to catch the man's attention fail until she sends him a special delivery of a telescope, via balloon, and the man finally gets to see Earth on Christmas night.[20] The strapline for the advert is "Show someone they're loved this Christmas", with the company teaming up with the charity Age UK.[21] The advert, the first of the brand's Christmastime commercials that was directed by a woman – Kim Gehrig –, is estimated to have cost around £7 million.[22]

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"Buster the Boxer"

TBA

10 November 2016 (2016-11-10)

N/A

27.9

The music for the 2016 campaign is a cover of Randy Crawford's "One Day I'll Fly Away", performed by English electronica band Vaults. The Dougal Wilson-directed[24] advert was released on Thursday 10 November and made its TV debut at 9.15pm on ITV. The adverts follows the story of a young girl, several wild animals and a Boxer dog named Buster. On Christmas eve, the young girl's father builds a trampoline in the garden, only for two foxes and a badger to begin jumping on the trampoline, later joined by two squirrels and a hedgehog. As the animals play, Buster watches from the living room. On Christmas Day, the girl runs down the stairs and into the garden to find the trampoline, only for Buster to leap onto it and do some jumping himself.[25] It was reported that the advert cost £1 million to make, £6 million cheaper than last year's advert.[26] A portion of the soft toy animals sales earnings were donated to The Wildlife Trusts.[27]

The Michel Gondry-helmed[28] advert features a cover of The Beatles' "Golden Slumbers", performed by the band Elbow. It tells the story of a boy who is afraid of the dark, and a monster named Moz who lives under his bed. Scared of the dark, the boy looks under his bed one night to find that Moz is resting there. Although the child is at first scared, then irritated by the monster's antics, the two very quickly become friends, although the boy quickly begins to become tired in the day due to playing with Moz at night. That Christmas, the child finds a gift under the tree that his family don't seem to recognise. Opening it, he finds a nightlight. When the nightlight is on, he can't see his new friend any more, but once he turns it off, he realises that Moz is still there after all.

Following its premiere, author Chris Riddell accused John Lewis of plagiarizing elements of the advert from his 1986 children's book Mr Underbed. Citing the similar themes of a child befriending a fluffy monster who lived under their bed, he stated that it was "very generous of John Lewis to devote their Christmas advertising campaign to my 1986 picture book... in this age of shrinking publicity budgets". John Lewis defended the accusations, stating that the respective storylines of both works were "utterly different" (with the ad focusing primarily on the friendship between Moz and the child, and Mr Underbed having a child discover other creatures who lived in his room), and that monsters under the bed were a common concept that had been the subject of numerous works. The controversy heightened demand for the book, with copies of Mr Underbed quickly selling out from stores.[29][30]

Beginning with Elton John playing the opening notes of "Your Song", he then reminisces about his life and career in reverse, eventually culminating with Christmas Day in the 1950's when he received a piano for Christmas from his mother.

As a teaser for the advert, ITV changed the theme tunes on several of its programmes to piano arrangements prior to its premiere, and some John Lewis & Partners stores hid the "Lewis" from their signage to leave only "John".[31][32][33][34] In 2019, the commercial won the Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial.[35]

John Lewis was honoured at the 2012 IPA Effectiveness Awards for their campaigns up to that point. They were awarded the top prize which is awarded to companies "showcasing and rewarding campaigns that demonstrate their marketing payback".[38]